In a sign of the continent’s increasing importance for Russia, its president, Vladimir Putin, held the first Russia-Africa summit in October 2019
Ignoring the geo-political overtones from Deutsche Welle (see link below), the article does discuss Russia’s role in helping Africa to build nuclear energy plants, which are vital for the continent. Over 600 million Africans lack access to electricity. Over 1,000 gigawatts of additional power is urgently required. Nuclear power is the most efficient energy to preform work and power an industrialized economy, as well as an optimal energy source to desalinize water. Without abundant accessible electricity, Africa will not develop, and poverty and food shortages will continue. Production of energy and the elimination of poverty are essential for fighting COVID-19 and reducing all diseases in Africa, including cholera.
Excerpts below:
“Rwanda’s parliament has just approved a plan for Russia’s state-owned Rosatom nuclear conglomerate to build it a nuclear research center and reactor in the capital, Kigali.
“The Center of Nuclear Science and Technologies, planned for completion by 2024, will include nuclear research labs as well as a small research reactor with up to 10 MW capacity.
“Ethiopia, Nigeria and Zambia have signed similar deals with Rosatom, while countries such as Ghana, Uganda, Sudan and DRC have less expansive cooperation agreements…
“Rwanda’s planned research reactor will also be used to manufacture radioisotopes, according to Rosatom. Radioisotopes have many applications from irradiating food to increase its shelf life to helping diagnose tumors or heart disease.
“Such research reactors have “definite advantages” in fields such as nuclear medicine, nuclear scientist Michael Gatari, a professor at the University of Nairobi, told DW.
“In addition, on a continent where where more than half of the population lack access to electricity, there is “immense potential” for nuclear to provide a clean source of energy to meet Africa’s large energy deficit, the Center for Global Development study, Atoms for Africa, found.
“In the long term, a nuclear reactor generates electricity cheaper than we are paying now. It is also stable and produces no carbon emissions,” Gatari said in a phone interview from Nairobi.”
In my interview with PressTV, Watch: Ending Conflict in Libya Requires New Thinking, I discussed the necessity for a new approach to end the war in Libya. The West turned Libya into a failed state in 2011. Armies on the ground competing for territorial control will not be able to restore Libya’s sovereignty.
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in the economic development policy of Africa for 30 years. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com
In the next decade, beginning on January 1, 2020, African nations must pursue nuclear energy. This is necessary to provide energy to the continent, which is suffering from a huge deficit in electricity, but nuclear technology has many additional benefits to African economies. This includes creating large amounts of potable water. With nuclear power plants along the Mediterranean and Red Sea, the equivalent of a “second Nile River” from desalination through nuclear powered desalination would transform the nations of the Nile Basin. Constructing Small Modular Nuclear Reactors-SMRs (see below) in every African nation would be a important first step towards ending poverty and industrializing the continent. Let me bluntly state: without abundant, low cost energy, Africa will not develop, and its people will suffer. Energizing Africa is not an option, it is a life and death necessity!
“Combining renewables with nuclear power, however, makes the task of powering Africa’s growing economies more viable – not to mention the other useful and often overlooked aspects that nuclear can contribute to development. Although South Africa is the only country on the continent currently operating a nuclear power plant, the technology is being increasingly considered by African leaders. For example, works are set to begin on a new 4.8GW plant in El Dabaa Egypt next year, which is being developed by Russia’s Rosatom.
“Other countries including Ethiopia, Zambia, Nigeria and Ghana also have memorandums of understanding with Rosatom that pave the way for nuclear development. South Korea are also looking to invest in the continent’s energy industry, while Chinese nuclear firms have entered into agreements with Kenya, Sudan and Uganda. Energy is a key driver for development. In Ghana, for example, nuclear is seen as the obvious way to provide reliable energy for bauxite refineries which would increase jobs and export capacity.
Technology beyond electricity
“But nuclear technology provides more than just energy: many advanced nuclear designs produce high-temperature process heat for uses in desalination plants, chemical production and even district heating systems. These subsidiary features would allow nuclear technology to benefit society beyond the generation of electricity – and potentially accelerating its deployment.
“Nuclear technologies are already being used in agriculture, for example, where isotopes and radiation techniques are harnessed to combat pests and diseases or to increase livestock and crop production. For instance, farmers in Benin have increased their maize yields by 50 percent, while simultaneously reducing the amount of fertiliser used by 70 percent, thanks to the deployment of nuclear-derived nitrogen-fixation methods – the same techniques that are allowing Maasai farmers in Kenya to double vegetable crop yields with half the irrigation of traditional methods.
“By contrast, nuclear desalination could use the excess heat from new reactor designs like Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) to produce thermal and electrical energy without emitting greenhouse gases, which then transforms seawater into freshwater. While capital costs for nuclear plants are initially high, fuel costs are low and stable: a doubling in the price of uranium would result in only a five percent increase in the total cost of energy generation. In contrast, an equivalent increase in oil would cause freshwater production costs to surge by 70 percent.”
December 13, 2019—There’s some real good news for the U.S. economy today. NuScale, an Oregon company that is developing a small modular nuclear reactor (SMR), has passed the next stage of review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Cross-section of NuScale small modular reactor (world nuclear news)
As this blog has reported before, the mass development of nuclear power is a critical component to bringing the productivity of the U.S. economy out of the doldrums, and thus bringing us into a new era of prosperity. High-speed rail, modernized water systems, the space program, and many other components of an economic recovery program depend upon generating huge amounts of electricity that are way beyond our current capacity. Nuclear represents a leap in productivity that will allow us to get there, as well as a step on the way to the development of thermonuclear fusion.
NuScale’s design for an SMR has now gone through four phases of review. It still has to go through stages 5 and 6. According to the company’s press release, the Oregon-based company is partnering with the U.S. Department of Energy, as well as other companies. It has received support from Congress.
As I outlined in a post approximately one year ago, the promise of SMRs lies not only in their safety design, but in the fact that the United States still has the industrial capacity to produce them assembly-line fashion. Over the past 40 years, the heavy industrial capability for producing a standard-sized nuclear reactor (measured in hundreds of megawatts or over 1000) has been dismantled. But a small reactor of 12 to 50 megawatts could be produced in assembly-line fashion, and provide a flexible means of providing power outside major urban areas, including hard-to-reach regions.
The United States is not the only country working on SMRs, and some in the industry are seeking to motivate investment in NuScale on the basis of “beating the competition.” Such peaceful competition has a huge positive payoff for the human race, and can only be encouraged. Thus NuScale’s progress with the NRC is most welcome news.
The NuScale press release can be read in full here.
Left-Claver Gatet, Rwanda Minister of Infrastructure. Right-Alexy Likacheve, Director General of Rosatrom. Speaking at the Russia-Africa Summit in Sochi.
October 27, 2019
The article below from {World Nuclear News}, reports on important agreements with Russia to build nuclear power plants in Africa. Beyond providing energy, nuclear plants will provide jobs and new shill levels for the tens of million of young Africans entering the work force. Along with China, Russia is assisting African nations in building vitally needed infrastructure, which they need to become industrialized, with productive manufacturing and agriculture sectors. This is very good news for the African continent.
Speaking at the round table session titled The Contribution of Nuclear Technologies in the Development of Africa, Alexey Likhachov said:.
“We are talking about solutions related to raising the level of education, energy security, applying nuclear solutions to medicine, agriculture, as well as other scientific research and development. Every dollar invested in our projects in any country, brings two dollars in localisation to that country. This significantly increases the country’s GDP.”
Rosatom said a job is created for every 0.5 MWe of electricity produced at a nuclear power plant, meaning that a 1000 MWe plant provides employment for more than 2000 people. Human capital development is both “a condition and a consequence” of nuclear power plant construction projects, it added.
Through joint educational programmes, the Russian state nuclear corporation is attracting applicants from African countries to its partner universities in Russia, it said, and Rosatom has already awarded up to 50 scholarships to students from Rwanda and Zambia. They are among hundreds of other African students from countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, it added.
Development
Claver Gatete, Rwanda’s minister of infrastructure, said: “In order to grow our industries from 17% GDP to 30% GDP, and to achieve our ambition of becoming a high-income country by 2050, we want to take advantage of nuclear to enhance our socio-economic development.” Rwanda sees a clear link, he said, between nuclear technologies and the country’s vision of development.
Citing data from the World Economic Forum, Rosatom noted that 15 to 20 million young people are to enter Africa’s workforce in the next two decades, meaning that 15% of the world’s working-age population will be in Africa, with 60% under-25.”
The Russian economist Sergei Glazyev, who was for years an economic adviser to President Putin and is today minister in charge of integration with the Eurasian Economic Union, spoke to the gathered leaders at the Russia-Africa forum
in Sochi, and warned them about the policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). According to Moscow Times, Glazyev reported that IMF policies had led to about $1 trillion in capital flight from Russia, and another $1 trillion or so from the other 14 post-Soviet countries over the last 30 years.
Glazyev said the IMF has adopted a similar approach in Africa as the former Soviet Union. “Of course, Africa has been exploited for much longer. We have been living in this financial and economic environment for only 30 years.” Moscow Times added that “Glazyev also advised African countries to keep full control over their natural resources and infrastructure, in line with his advocacy in Moscow for greater economic self-sufficiency.”
A nuclear plant. Russia’s nuclear agency Rosatom has signed co-operation agreements to set up the nuclear plants in Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. FILE PHOTO | AFP
Nuclear power is essential to meet the needs of Africa’s huge energy deficit. However, it will do more for Africa. Nuclear energy not only has a higher energy flux density than hydro, coal, gas, inefficient solar, and silly wind mills, but it embodies a higher level of technology. This will enable African nations to raise the skill level of their workforce, as they learn to build an operate a more technologically advanced energy platform. More engineering schools and training centers will be required as African nations enter the age of civilian nuclear power. Thus, the nuclear energy industry will serve as a science driver for society, while creating higher levels of economic growth.
The Rwandan Cabinet has approved an agreement with Russia to advance the use of nuclear energy for “peaceful purposes,” a move that is expected to bolster relations between the two countries and advance the latter’s interests in the region.
This comes ahead of the first Russia-African Forum next week in the city of Sochi, which President Paul Kagame has confirmed attendance, accompanied by a delegation of senior government officials.
The nuclear power deal was first signed in Moscow last December and will see Russian scientists set up a Centre for Nuclear Science and Technology in Kigali.
The deal was boosted in May when a Russian government nuclear parastatal, Rosatom Global, reached an agreement to set up the nuclear plant by 2024—that the government says will help in the advancement of technology in agriculture, energy production and environment protection.
The Russia-Africa Economic Forum in Sochi will host a special panel discussion, “Contribution of Nuclear Technologies in the Development of Africa,” on October 23, with the participation of Alexey Likhachev, Director General of Rosatom-the State Nuclear Energy Corporation.
“Rosatom has been active in Africa for a long time. The creation and development of the nuclear industry in Africa will not only solve the problem of the energy crisis, but also change the standard of living, providing full access to public health services, increasing the level of education and food security. We see a great interest on the part of African countries in creating new ties for further technological development. Moreover, we are ready to discuss all possible options for cooperation on the continent. I am sure that Russian-African nuclear projects will have a great future,” said Likhachev on Oct. 15, in a preview of the Sochi event.
The forum in Sochi was also prepared by a conference in Nairobi last week that featured officials of Rosatom and over 150 energy and nuclear professionals from across the globe. Representatives from key African countries that are planning or already implementing their respective programs for developing peaceful nuclear technologies included Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zambia.
Speaking in Nairobi, Dmitry Shornikov, CEO of Rosatom Central and Southern Africa, emphasized the advantages of joining the atomic club through creating nuclear industries in newcomer countries, and gave an overview of projects with the maximum positive effect on industrial development, enhancing the quality of life and developing ‘knowledge economy’.
Russia’s Growing Involvement in African Nuclear Development
One of the questions of the Oct. 23-24 Russia-Africa Summit is the need for Africa to develop civilian nuclear power. Russia is at the front end of the strategy to equip Africa with nuclear power, reports Sébastien Périmony in his blog “Africa with the Eyes of the Future” in France. No fewer than eight African countries have already signed agreements with Russia’s nuclear power company, Rosatom: Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Rwanda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Ghana.
“The stark reality is that Africa is in dire need of energy: 48 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa produce as much energy as the single country of Spain produces in Europe. That means that every other African has no access to electricity. According to the Global Energy Architecture Performance Index Report 2017, only five African countries have 100% electrification, all of them in North Africa: Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Morocco. South Africa follows immediately after, with a rate of 85.40%. Then come Ghana, 64.06%; Senegal, 56.50%; Ivory Coast, 55.80; and Nigeria, 55.60%. Some francophone countries: World Bank Reports gives access to electricity as 16% for Niger, 9% for Chad, 14% for the Central African Republic, and 20% for Burkina Fasso.”
“The future of energy and base-load generation is in nuclear, and probably coal and liquefied natural gas. Kenya needs to push ahead with the nuclear agenda to meet the country’s energy needs,” said the managing director of Kenya Nuclear Electricity Board Collins Juma.
Mr Juma said that Kenya requires at least 18,000MW to become a middle-income and an industrialized nation. With the total installed capacity at 2,370MW, it will need to diversify its energy sources to reach that target.
Countries in East Africa are among those on the continent seeking to build nuclear power plants driven by the need to end power challenges, and accelerate industrial and economic growth.
Russia, China and South Korea have emerged as the key vendors of nuclear energy, offering to help in financing the deals.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been at the forefront of the campaign to sell nuclear to Africa. Its deputy director-general Mikhail Chudakov told The EastAfrican that nuclear energy holds the key to industrial development.
“Africa needs to understand that solar and wind are good for home lighting [but not manufacturing],” he said.
Massive investments
But nuclear energy needs massive resources to build and operate, so state-owned companies like Russia’s Rosatom, China General Nuclear, China National Nuclear Corporation and Korea Electric Power Corporation are pushing various financing and construction models for the continent’s customers.
The companies have signed agreements and memoranda with African countries, ranging from research and development and human resources development to full reactor projects. Russia and China, in particular, have crafted packages providing state-backed loans, in the process altering the dynamics of nuclear markets.
In Egypt, for instance, Russia is providing 85 per cent of the funding for the 4,800MW plant currently under construction at a cost of $21 billion.
Proposed Transaqua Navigable Canal to Refurbish Lake Chad in blue
May 20, 2019
Nigerian Water Minister Adamu’s ‘Battle To Reclaim Lake Chad’
May 16, The {Daily Trust} of Nigeria has published an article on the efforts by Nigeria’s Water Minister Suleiman Adamu for the inter-basin water transfer to reverse the shrinking Lake Chad with Transaqua.
“Perhaps, the most cheering moves by the present administration in the last three years in the water sector is the renewed interest to save the drying Lake Chad,” says the article, reporting that Adamu organized the International Conference on Lake Chad, Feb. 26-28, 2018 in Abuja.
“Experts at the conference, including the United Nation Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) agreed with the position of the Federal Government of Nigeria that it was time to find workable solution to recharge the drying Lake, which they said had depleted from its original size.
“One of the workable solutions suggested at the conference was to transfer water from the Congo Basin to the Lake Chad Basin [Transaqua, ed.], which Nigeria’s water minister says is technically feasible based on earlier studies conducted by a Chinese company, PowerChina….”
“Experts agreed that transferring water from Congo Basin down to the Lake Chad is a herculean task that requires huge money and time and thus its impact cannot be felt immediately,” the article says, quoting some engineers who say feasibility studies might take years. This is the view of those who put the cart before the horse, and want to first see whether the color of flamingos will be affected or if rare species of snakes would be threatened, before proving the technical feasibility of the project.
However, as concerns financing, “Hope rises recently, when the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres agreed to help raise $50 billion for a project to help raise $50 billion for a project to help revive the drought-stricken Lake. President Muhammad Buhari was said to have written to the UN scribe to co-chair the fundraising session with him and his acceptance response was delivered by the President of the African Development Bank, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina in Abuja. With this many believe that if the current efforts to reclaim the lake are sustained or intensified, glory days lie ahead.”
Nigeria’s President Buhari Continues Organizing Support for Transaqua
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari won the support from the President of the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, for the “inter-basin water transfer” to save Lake Chad, the technical name for the Transaqua project. Meeting Espinosa in Abuja, May 7, Buhari “stressed the role the international community needed to play in the endeavor, since recharging the lake was beyond the financial power of the affected countries,” says a statement issued by Buhari’s spokesman Femi Adesina.
In a separate meeting with Espinosa, Nigerian Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama said: “We are looking to have the support of the UN and your support in particular, to address this challenge. One of the mechanisms we have identified is to recharge the Lake and it is going to be capital intensive efforts and something in the order of $40-$50 billion estimated and clearly, we are going to leverage on the international community because this is a huge resources and we look for your support.”
On her side, the UNGA President Espinosa, a native of Ecuador, said: “It is a huge thing. And as a geographer, I can tell you. When I look at the map of Lake Chad and that in less than 40 years, this lake went from 24,000 something to 2,000 square kilometers, I have concluded that this is one of the major climate change disasters in this continent.
“So, that is a very touching example of how we need to tackle development and security together. President Muhammadu Buhari has told us also that there is no peace and security without development and there is no development without peace,” she said.
President Buhari had described the combined effect of the impoverishment and terrorism in the Lake Chad region. “The condition of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the country is pathetic. We have at least a million children who neither know their parents nor where they come from.” Damage to infrastructure, particularly in the Northeast, has been horrendous: “Bridges have been blown up, schools, hospitals, churches, mosques, and other buildings have been destroyed. All these will be rehabilitated, and every form of international help is welcome.”
Russia’s Growing Involvement in Africa’s Nuclear Power Projects
In an article in OilPrice.com today, Vanand Meliksetian, an energy and utilities consultant, points out the growing Russian interest in Africa’s energy development in general, and in establishing nuclear power in Africa in particular.
After showing that energy poverty is a significant problem in Africa in holding back its economic potential, he writes: “Russia’s energy industry, in comparison, is booming. Its state-run nuclear energy company Rosatom has an order book of 34 reactors in 12 countries worth $300 billion. Recently, Moscow has set its eyes on Africa where most states have either already struck a deal with the Kremlin or are considering one.”
The lack of access to a reliable and affordable source of energy is a severe impediment to Africa’s economic development. Also, Africa is urbanizing much faster than the rest of the world. African cities are expanding by 8% every year compared to 2% globally — which puts even more pressure on the existing energy systems.
In view of this development, Russia is keen to offer nuclear power to the African countries by working out deals which would allow them to adopt nuclear power. “The Russian deal is particularly appealing to countries lacking nuclear know how, due to Moscow’s comprehensive offers regarding financing, construction, and operation of the facilities. Currently, Rosatom is experimenting with a contract known as build-own-operate, under which ownership of the plant remains in Russian hands while energy is sold to the host country. This new type of contract is appealing to several African states which lack the means to finance construction.
